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The subject invention relates generally to data processing and more particularly to a method and apparatus providing high speed parallel accessing of data stored at a number of remote heterogeneous sites and automatic execution of user-designed programs and applications on such data.
Present technology is witnessing the development of large remote databases or xe2x80x9cdata warehousesxe2x80x9d, as well as rapid expansion of the Internet and proliferation of corporate intranets. Demand is growing for increasingly large and rapid data transfers involving streaming video, visualization graphics and large data warehouse downloads over such new network protocols as the Fast Ethernet and Gigabyte Ethernet. The data which it would be desirable to access may be stored across heterogeneous sites, i.e., sites which contain different types of database systems or other data containers. Hence the data which may need to be accessed may be referred to as xe2x80x9cheterogeneous dataxe2x80x9d.
At the same time as demand has grown for large and rapid data transfers, there has been constant pressure to simplify the user interface to a vast array of components and data storage facilities. While individual components in a particular solution are often easy to use, combining them in a complete solution still presents extremely complex problems to the user.
In addition to simplifying the user interface to heterogeneous data and complex arrays of components, it appears desirable to provide the user with added capabilities to readily command and perform more powerful automated data processing operations, in addition to simple xe2x80x9csearchxe2x80x9d queries.
Our co-pending application, U.S. Ser. No. 09/405,038 filed Sep. 24, 1999, incorporated by reference herein and entitled Method And Apparatus For High Speed Parallel Accessing And Execution of Methods Across Multiple Heterogeneous Data Sources discloses the accessing of distributed data contained in a number of distributed heterogeneous data sources via a search initiated by a single JAVA Script wherein a single object represents the data to be retrieved and subjected to a method in the Script.
The subject invention relates to particular methods and commands (or xe2x80x9cprogram constructsxe2x80x9d) implementable in the system of the co-pending application. These methods permit a user to generate his or her own methods, programs and applications within the context of the single object approach and to have these methods etc. executed in parallel across heterogeneous distributed data.
The invention finds one application in a system employing metadata-based high level abstraction of a federation of clustered or distributed heterogeneous databases and/or data files in which the federation of databases is referenced or treated as a single object, as well as in an apparatus for parallel data access and concurrent execution of object methods across the distributed data. The single object is referenced hereafter as the xe2x80x9cdata source object,xe2x80x9d sometimes abbreviated to simply xe2x80x9cdata object.xe2x80x9d
Other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, wherein is shown and described only the preferred embodiment of the invention, simply by way of illustration of the best mode contemplated of carrying out the invention. As will be realized, the invention is capable of other and different embodiments, and its several details are capable of modifications in various obvious respects, all without departing from the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature, and not as restrictive, and what is intended to be protected by Letters Patent is set forth in the appended claims. The present invention will become apparent when taken in conjunction with the following description and attached drawings, wherein like characters indicate like parts, and which drawings form a part of this application.